The Broken Ones

CHAPTER 17

NOAH

The air inside isn't fresh, as what one would expect from a country house tucked far away from the city; it's thick, and it gets thicker every time I unlock the front door and step inside. Maybe it's just me, a reaction to the woman who lives within these walls.

Simone.

She stifles me. I feel her in my throat and swallow hard, reaching up to unbutton my collar and loosen my tie. How in the world has it come to this? The way things can change so quickly.

Before

In the beginning, it had been so easy. A dalliance with Simone to take the edge off my marital problems, Gwen's lack of interest in sex, in me; her unspoken disappointment with me. Simone had flattered my ego, boosted my confidence. With Gwen, I had always felt that I was never good enough, lacking; with Simone, I was the king of the world. She made me feel like I was everything.

Simone was never meant to be anything more than a distraction. She was supposed to be a relief, a release from the rut of working, parenting and trying to be a good husband. Much like one of those random faceless women I had picked up and slept with on my sporadic business trips through the years; one-night encounters in anonymous pubs all over London after long work conferences, where nobody knew me and I didn't have to care if anybody saw what I was doing. I wasn't in Norwich. In this illicit other world, I never talked about my wife or my daughter. I never talked about my family. I was careful to keep the two parts of my life separate. Gwen would never know. Gwen, my wife. The woman I loved. None of these lust-fuelled trysts meant anything.

The nanny, though, was different. She seduced me in my house. I made a drastic mistake. She wasn't an anonymous stranger. Gwen knew her, trusted her. I was a fool. I was reckless. I broke my safe code, and I suffered the devastating consequences. My marriage crumbled, and Simone dealt it the final death blow.

Simone was my biggest mistake. She was never meant to last, but what started out as a fling turned into a full-fledged affair. She wouldn't let me go, and I was too weak to say no. If she hadn't inserted that dedication to me in her book, we would still be carrying on an affair today. I might still be married to Gwen, still be Emma's daddy. But Simone went a step too far, she grew so tired of being the mistress, she told me much, much later, that she decided to come clean with those two ghastly words For Noah, and the rest, as they say, is history.

True, Simone had said horribly offensive things to me when I confronted her, things that insulted my performance as a lover, sneering that it had all been one big lie on her part. She despised me, she had ranted, she had just used me as a tool to destroy Gwen and our marriage. I was deeply hurt and furious --- how could I not be when she mocked my lovemaking skills? Women have thanked me, thanked me, mind you! for heightening the sexual experience for them. That was mindblowing, incredible, out of the world, amazing, oh my God, are you for real? they would gasp in awe, still sweating, shaking, from the multiple orgasms I had skilfully, so masterfully drawn out from their hapless quivering bodies.

Simone called me later to say it had all been a mistake. She had been so upset, she said, her voice husky over the phone, so distraught; she had wanted to hurt me, because I had shouted at her for inserting that blasted dedication in her book, had kept on and on about losing Gwen; it had hurt her, made her so jealous that she had just snapped. She loved me so much, she said, her voice low, husky. I never beg, but I'm begging you now, Noah. Please forgive me. I've never loved anyone the way I love you. I need you. Please don't walk away from me.

I was silent. I didn't want her. Not after what she did to me. To Gwen.

To be honest, she scared me a little. Not when she was being funny, fun-loving and sexy, of course. But in her darker moods, she could be intimidating. Her possessiveness, for instance. It could be quite unsettling.